ice dam
ice dam noun: an obstruction to the flow of a river caused by the flow of a glacier across its course. Also the ellipsis of ice dam membrane.
Noun
ice dam (plural ice dams)
- An obstruction to the flow of a river caused by the flow of a glacier across its course.
- An obstruction to the flow of a river caused by the concatenation of surface ice into a ridge that rises above and sinks below the surface causing a blockage, occurring frequently during spring breakup season.
- A mass of ice formed at the transition from a warm to a cold roof surface, frequently formed by refreezing meltwater at the overhang of a steep roof, causing ice and water to back up under roofing materials.
Also used as
ice dam is also the ellipsis of ice dam membrane.
Forms of ice dam
| plural | ice dams |
|---|
Words formed from ice dam
Questions about ice dam
- What does ice dam mean?
- Ice dam means an obstruction to the flow of a river caused by the flow of a glacier across its course.
- What part of speech is ice dam?
- Ice dam is a noun.
- What is the plural of ice dam?
- The plural of ice dam is ice dams.
Words near ice dam in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: ice dam (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Cite this entry: “ice dam.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/ice_dam. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.